Category Archives: The Independent View

Eleanor Black

The Independent View: Tory plan for marriage tax allowance flies in face of what Lib Dems stand for

By Eleanor Black | Tue 20th April 2010 - 10:40 am

David Cameron’s policy to give £3 a week in marriage tax allowance to a third of married couples is to ‘send a signal’ that marriage is better than any other type of relationship. Today, a new campaign launched to ‘send a signal’ back: don’t judge my family.

Inspired by JK Rowlings’ attack on the policy last week, The Don’t Judge My Family campaign (www.dontjudgemyfamily.com) is seeing people sign up in droves. The issue has clearly touched a nerve: in just a few days 1,500 people had signed up to the Facebook page, before the website had even …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pinsent

Vince Cable crossed with Sid Vicious and with a dash of Sinatra

By Mark Pinsent | Wed 14th April 2010 - 11:50 am

The latest salvo from the InVinceCable We Trust campaign is Vince Cable’s Way…a, umm, ‘mild’ reworking of the crooners’ classic My Way. Though think more Sid Vicious than Sinatra…

Clearly the video’s a lighthearted way to make the serious point at the centre of the InVinceCable campaign: that Vince Cable is the only realistic candidate for chancellor with the credentials to do the job effectively.

We realise that this focus on one position in the next Government and one individual amongst all politicians isn’t one supported by all, but the potential for a hung parliament, in our view, …

Continue reading »
Also posted in News and Online politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Independent View: Asking business leaders to think again

By Katy Wells | Sun 11th April 2010 - 5:50 pm

This week, leaders of some of the UK’s biggest businesses came out in support of George Osborne’s plans to reverse Labour’s proposed National Insurance rise. In a letter to the Telegraph, they argue that the reversal, to be funded by an extra £6 billion’s worth of efficiency savings, is needed to protect jobs keep Britain’s economic recovery on track.

38 Degrees has launched a campaign to persuade these business leaders to change their minds. We’re concerned that their outcry might have less to do with concerns about job-losses, and more to do with the effect that the increases in their financial …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
RichardWilson

The Independent View: The Skeptical Voter

By RichardWilson | Thu 8th April 2010 - 2:20 pm

Skeptical Voter is a non-partisan project aimed at helping UK voters make an informed choice by documenting where each candidate stands on science, secularism and evidence-based policy.

Over the past few months we have been developing the Skeptical Voter wiki, a candidate database that works along similar lines to Wikipedia. Anyone can create or edit an entry, and our volunteers have been busily collating information about the views of incumbent MPs on issues ranging from the abolition of the blasphemy law to climate change science.

The Skeptical Voter wiki is already a rich source of information, with …

Continue reading »
Also posted in General Election and Op-eds | Leave a comment
Tony Samphier

The Independent View: Where do the candidates stand on democratic reform?

By Tony Samphier | Tue 6th April 2010 - 8:40 am

After three years of ifs, buts and maybes since the “election that never was” debacle in 2007, we’re going to be put out of our misery this week.

The phoney war that has been fought out by the political class, to the bemusement of the electorate, is one of the least appealing aspects of our elitist political culture.

With this in mind, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by responses from candidates to the general election policy comparison web initiative DEMREF 2010, which, for my sins, I have hurriedly got together in recent months.

To date, the majority of candidates who …

Continue reading »
Also posted in General Election and Op-eds | Leave a comment
James Evans

The Independent View: Introducing Hustings.com

By James Evans | Mon 5th April 2010 - 11:20 am

A lot has been written about the growing gulf between the voting public and their representatives, voter apathy and low turnout.  Candidates and the media do their best to engage voters but it’s an uphill slog.  At this election in particular a low turnout is a real risk because people have been put off voting at all by a succession of scandals.

A lot has also been written about how the internet may help candidates connect with voters.  Who knows whether this will be seen as the first ‘e-election’.  But it has struck me for a while that candidates’ online campaigns …

Continue reading »
Also posted in General Election and Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments

Don’t tax sweat – An Independent View from Thomas Colignatus

By Thomas Colignatus | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 2:45 pm

With our intelligence and enterpreneurship we create micro-chips and send crafts into space, but the creation of jobs for the disadvantaged seems out of reach. The rich countries in the world still have a huge pool of unemployment and poverty at the bottom of society. A close analysis gives the insight that we actually create unemployment and poverty ourselves.

The following table gives the legal minimum wage in the US (dollars), in the UK (pounds) and in Holland (euros) as key examples for the rich world. The table is best understood from the principle of “don’t tax sweat”.

That is, workers at the minimum should be exempt from levies.

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments
Richard Wellings

An Independent View from the IEA: Enterprise needs liberalism – but are the Liberal Democrats liberal?

By Richard Wellings | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 8:45 am

The Liberal Democrats should be applauded for focusing on business in their new policy paper, Enterprise in a fair society. In the context of the current economic crisis, the document reminds us that businesses produce the wealth that not only raises living standards, but also funds health, education and so on – a lesson arguably ignored by New Labour as they burdened firms with more and more taxation and red tape.

There are some excellent ideas. Of particular note is a proposal to incorporate a sunset clause into each new business regulation so that it is time limited. This could …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | 49 Comments
Dave Dyke

The Independent View: England Left Forward – the reason for its foundation

By Dave Dyke | Wed 24th March 2010 - 3:50 pm

One of the major successes of the past 13 years, depending on your point of view, has been devolution. The establishment of Parliaments and Assemblies has transformed the governance and the culture of three of the four nations within the Union. However, this has left a big question at the heart of government, which ash also had a knock-on effect culturally:

How should England be governed?

This is often referred to in the media as “The English Question”. It is a question that the major political parties have, so far, avoided answering in a satisfactory manner. In fact, the major parties seemed to avoid any …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | 36 Comments
Sophia Parker

The Independent View: five key priorities for the UK’s low earners

By Sophia Parker | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 3:20 pm

Today, the Resolution Foundation launches our open memo to the next government.  In it, we propose five key priorities which we believe will improve outcomes for the UK’s 9.4 million working-age ‘low earners’ – those people living on an average household income of £15,800 while remaining broadly independent of state support.

These are families who may not be the poorest in society, and they are not in crisis. Nevertheless their economic independence is fragile and they are living at the very edge of their means. 56 per cent have experienced a drop in income since the start of the recession – and …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Robert Draper

The Independent View: A new electoral system

By Robert Draper | Sun 21st March 2010 - 12:50 pm

We all understand the disproportionate effects of first past the post (FPTP), but what about the distance it puts between voters and politicians?

The size of constituencies used in FPTP, and the even larger ones used in STV, mean that politicians can’t hear the voices of individual communities clearly. The link between voters and MP gets weaker the larger the size of the constituency they are elected in.

There is only one electoral system that will make the gap smaller and deliver proportional results, non-contiguous first past the post. For an explanation on how this works, click here.

…

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | 19 Comments
Julian Astle

The Independent View: A Lib-Con coalition? Don’t hold your breath

By Julian Astle | Fri 19th March 2010 - 9:20 am

In the past week, the Conservatives have been talking up their chances of doing a deal with the Liberal Democrats if the forthcoming general election fails to deliver them a working majority. Conservative shadow business secretary Ken Clarke has even suggested that “Nick Clegg is a conservative”. David Cameron meanwhile regularly describes himself as a “liberal Conservative” and has claimed that on a range of policy issues, “there’s barely a cigarette paper between us”.

But in a new report from CentreForum, the liberal think tank, we argue that the two parties’ similarities …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Jim Killock

The Independent View: The Digital Economy Bill should not be pushed through without proper scrutiny

By Jim Killock | Wed 17th March 2010 - 12:50 pm

Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, writes about the Digital Economy Bill:

The Open Rights Group would like to thank the Lib Dems for taking a strong policy stance against the Digital Economy Bill’s disconnection and web blocking proposals.

The biggest danger now is that Parliament will not debate or amend the Bill at all. After the budget, the Bill could be passed with little or no debate, as the election must be called within the next few weeks. The result could be that the Bill becomes law in very bad shape.

The Lib Dems have a very significant role …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 12 Comments

The Fawcett Society asks Lib Dems: What About Women?

By Ceri Goddard | Wed 10th March 2010 - 5:25 pm

Ceri Goddard is Chief Executive of The Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading campaign for equality between women and men. Fawcett’s aim during the coming general election is to get women and the impact on women considered as part of mainstream policy development by the parties. Ceri explains more here …

This week Fawcett, with more than 40 other organisations are launching our pre-election campaign. Instead of the usual “manifesto” of policies we’re turning the tables on the parties and literally asking What About Women?

All the leaders, Nick Clegg included, have been courting women voters – noted by the mainstream media, this …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 5 Comments
Sarah Mulley

The Independent View: International development beyond aid – an opportunity to change the political debate

By Sarah Mulley | Tue 9th March 2010 - 4:15 pm

Sarah Mulley is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr).  Before joining ippr, she was coordinator of the UK Aid Network.

A major shift in political attitudes to international development has occurred in the UK during the last decade. There is now strong cross-party commitment to meeting the UN target to give 0.7% of GDP as aid, and DFID’s place in government as an independent department now seems secure.

But the cross-party commitment to aid, and to DFID, is not as clear cut as it might first seem.

First, the question of what counts as aid is crucial.  …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Independent View: Poverty can and must be made history

By John Madeley | Sun 7th March 2010 - 2:15 pm

Ten million people bought Make Poverty History campaign armbands in 2005. Some would hold that voters give development issues a low priority. But those armbands showed that a lot of voters care.

More and better aid, debt relief and trade justice were the demands of campaigners. Five years later, how is the government doing? Brilliantly if you fall for Labour’s spin. Mediocre if you analyse the facts.

An OECD report says that Britain is expected to devote 0.56% of national income to development aid this year. That hides a few things. The government arrives at this figure by including …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Josie Cohen

The Independent View: Controversy surrounding biofuels continues to mount

By Josie Cohen | Fri 5th March 2010 - 3:50 pm

Josie Cohen is Campaigns Officer at ActionAid UK and writes about their biofuels campaign:

The controversy surrounding biofuels has been hotting up over the last few weeks, reaching its peak when a comment from a top official within the European Commission was leaked.

Picked up originally by Reuters, the senior official warned that taking full account of the carbon footprint of biofuels would ‘kill’ an EU industry with revenues of approximately $5 billion per year. You would have thought that this revelation would be enough for the EU to put the brakes on the current expansion of biofuel production which, after all, …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Neil Roberts

The Independent View: politics, music and a new blog

By Neil Roberts | Wed 3rd March 2010 - 1:10 pm

Heaven is Whenever has been set up by myself (with help from Bella Gerens and Left Outside) as an escape for political bloggers where we want everyone – regardless of party or ideology – to write about the music they enjoy; favourite albums, overlooked artists, memorable gigs or cherished experiences.

We are in the midst of an election campaign which would try the patience of a saint. Though blogging is necessarily combative one of its joys is the space it creates to interact with opposing points of view.

This is a place not to write as esteemed …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Leave a comment
Ben Lyons

The Independent View: Parliamentary interns deserve better

By Ben Lyons | Fri 26th February 2010 - 11:50 am

What do Lib Dem MPs have in common with the Tories and Labour? Hardly any of them pay their interns – along with almost all politicians and media groups. With an increasingly competitive employment market, getting a job today often relies less on your interview skills than your ability to intern for free. An article in the New Statesman highlights this problem, but even they fail to pay those interns who are working for them.

To support yourself in London for three months costs around £2000. The division between those who can afford to do internships, and those who cannot, …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds and Parliament | 13 Comments
Malcolm Coles

The Independent View: Why it’s time to replace the PCC

By Malcolm Coles | Thu 25th February 2010 - 1:50 pm

Surprise, surprise. The Press Complaints Commission rejected the complaints about Jan Moir’s nasty attack on Stephen Gately.

If there’s any good to come out of this affair, perhaps it’s that this case reinforces the case for wholesale reform of the PCC. Here’s why.

The PCC is not independent

The PCC claims to be independent. One of the advantages of self regulation ought to be that it keeps the press out of the hands of politicians while still holding newspapers to account.

The PCC fails on both counts.

The Chair of the 17-member Commission is Baroness Buscombe, a Conservative member of the House of Lords. Her party …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
Owen Tudor

The Independent View: The Robin Hood Tax

By Owen Tudor | Tue 23rd February 2010 - 10:40 am

At the height of Make Poverty History back in 2005, in the Cabinet Room at No 10, Richard “Four Weddings and a Funeral” Curtis asked then PM Tony Blair, “would you mind if I showed you a video I’ve made?” It’s not the same as some bloke at work offering to show you his holiday snaps. So when Richard Curtis showed his new Robin Hood Tax video to some of the 85 national organisations supporting the latest big campaign in the TUC General Council Chamber earlier this month, we knew we were in for a treat. There’s already

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 61 Comments
Jim Killock

The Independent View: Liberal Democrats should oppose the Digital Economy Bill

By Jim Killock | Wed 10th February 2010 - 8:12 pm

Last week we reported that, following the concessions forced on the government, Don Foster MP is broadly happy with the Digital Economy Bill’s proposals on illicit downloads. Jim Killock of the The Open Rights Group has a different take on the situation:

The Digital Economy Bill should be opposed by Liberal Democrats. Mandelson’s Bill seeks to reduce illicit downloads by punishing innocent people, removing any chance of a reasonable defence, and by disconnecting people.

Let’s start with this first idea, of disconnecting ‘infringers’.

Let’s say you pay BT, for broadband and somebody else downloads a number of copyright music tracks. You, your family, and …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 25 Comments

The Independent View: Why Lib Dem, Labour and Green progressives must work together

By Anneliese Midgley | Fri 29th January 2010 - 10:20 am

Anneliese Midgley of Progressive London argues that 2010 is a crucial year for all progressives, regardless of party label, to stand up to the right.

Given the sheer scale of the issues facing our society – from the worst global economic crisis since the second world war through to the enormous challenge of climate change – it is essential if we are to move forward that we discuss those issues where we can forge a common progressive agenda.

In London our different electoral systems for the mayoralty and the London Assembly have already driven a debate about the …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | 47 Comments
John Cross

The Independent View: Close the Freedom of Information loophole

By John Cross | Wed 27th January 2010 - 1:50 pm

John Cross from the MySociety team writes about their latest campaign:

On New Year’s Day 2005, when the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force it was described in the Government Press Release as “one of the most generous Freedom of Information regimes in the world.” The reality has been mixed, information released has lead to thousands of news stories but there are still too many loopholes that can be used to avoid or delay the release of information that really ought to be made public.

I recently wrote to MP about one of the worst of the loopholes which …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Independent View: Three myths about PR – and one uncomfortable truth

By Jason O'Mahony | Tue 26th January 2010 - 4:30 pm

Jason O’Mahony was a former activist and candidate for the now defunct Irish Progressive Democrats. He now blogs on politics at www.jasonomahony.ie .

Let’s be honest. In the darkest chambers of British psephologist hell, beneath the pit of Parliament Channel subscribers, and even deeper than the cavern of sweaty handed ‘I’ve just found a 1970 Enoch Powell election poster. In crisp condition!’ enthusiasts, there is a special place reserved for Proportional Representation aficionados. Even amongst political anoraks and people who feel passionately about Peter Snow they are the underclass.

Of course, as an Irish political activist, who has lived his entire …

Continue reading »
Tagged , , , , , and | 15 Comments

The Independent View: Holocaust Memorial Day 2010

By Carly Whyborn | Fri 22nd January 2010 - 12:50 pm

Carly Whyborn is Chief Executive Officer, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

On the 27th of January hundreds of events across the country will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp. Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) remembers the victims and honours the survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution and those affected by subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. Sixty-five years on it is clear that the myriad of lessons and hopes for the future have not freed the world from hatred and atrocity. This new decade offers us a new challenge …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 2 Comments

Peter Tatchell writes … Is Museveni the new Mugabe?

By Peter Tatchell | Wed 20th January 2010 - 3:45 pm

Peter Tatchell reports on Uganda’s drift to authoritarianism …

Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, was once seen as the country’s great democratic saviour. Increasingly, he is becoming ever-more tyrannical, repeatedly violating the democratic and human rights principles of the African Union, United Nations and the Commonwealth. The international community is mute. It colludes with his regime.

How odd. World leaders readily condemn President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan – but they happily fund and support Museveni. Why the double standards? How can they justify such silence and inaction?

President Museveni’s Ugandan critics say his regime is a constitutional …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Simon Davies

The Independent View: How do we stop the growth of the surveillance state?

By Simon Davies | Wed 20th January 2010 - 12:50 pm

From any dispassionate view, it’s clear that the Liberal Democrats have consistently believed that the protection of our right to privacy is vital for a free and open society.

However, protecting that fragile right is a complex process that requires genuine and tangible policy objectives that will make a real difference. To reverse the rise of surveillance is a task that goes to the heart of how we are governed. Making a real difference will require a courageous agenda of change that reaches deep into the powerful institutions of parliament and government.

There is no doubt in the …

Continue reading »
Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Keith Halstead

Britain’s best MP competition: the results

By Keith Halstead | Thu 7th January 2010 - 4:20 pm

Our ‘Britain’s Best MP’ competition has come to a close with Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Harwich, a clear winner. The final results are:

Douglas Carswell 47%
Gisela Stuart 16%
Tom Harris 12%
Lynne Featherstone 9%
Bob Russell 6%
Jo Swinson 6%
David Howarth 2%
Chris Mullin 2%

I appreciate that the results do not make happy reading for visitors to this site and the results of online polls cannot be taken too seriously, but please don’t dismiss this competition just yet.

Whilst acknowledging that our hope of getting people to listen to the MPs answers and then vote for their ‘best MP’ based on what they heard probably …

Continue reading »
Tagged , , , , , , and | 10 Comments

The Independent View: Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Infrastructure

By Nelson Ogunshakin | Thu 7th January 2010 - 11:30 am

As Britain slowly emerges from recession policymakers are faced with the challenge of maintaining a recovery while addressing a deficit that could damage the long-term interests of the country. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers it was clear that nothing was going to be the same again. Government spending and procurement models such as PFI were all going to be rigorously questioned for their cost-effectiveness and value for money.

In the last year, ACE had been giving careful thought to these issues. Clearly, it is in the public interest to have robust infrastructure. Given the climate change …

Continue reading »
8 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • John Reed
    This is such a disappointing announcement. We must push to have the present system for pricing all electricity based on the cost of the most expensive, usual...
  • Peter Hirst
    I would add caring to bold and relevant. Getting a sympathetic ear at the end of a telephone help line is as important as an extra pound in your pay slip. Under...
  • Peter Hirst
    One of the more important issues that the electorate care about is how much political parties understand what matters to them. This varies from person to person...
  • Peter Hirst
    Inequality must be seen in the round. I appreciate living in the north-west because it gives me easy access to mountains such as in Snowdonia, The Lakes and Der...
  • Peter Hirst
    One of the aims of most societies is some sort of redistribution. So fiscal federalism must have a mechanism for the rich regions giving to the poorer. Without ...